The Q Awards: The Winning Goods

These successful companies all have one thing in common: they’re present (and past) clients of Goodwin Media.

The Highland company, comprised of 20 marketing professionals at the top of their trade, has changed the marketing game for local companies and propelled them to unprecedented growth. At least half of its clients have seen 10x growth within three years, and most of its projects see 2-3x growth year-over-year. Goodwin Media has truly been a secret ingredient for many of Utah Valley icons’ strategic marketing success.

“We’re a results-oriented company. Everything we do is about the results of our clients,” says Stewart Goodwin, founder of Goodwin Media. “There’s nobody we’re aware of with our track record, agility and ability. We’re good. And we’re passionate. We just rarely talk about it.”

Lucky for us, we got Goodwin to spill the goods.

The Origin Story

Growing up, Goodwin was always interested in art and creative endeavors. But in college, he put them out of his mind.

“I always thought you couldn’t make a living being an artist or doing anything fun, really,” Goodwin laughs. “I had it in my head that I needed to go down a medical path.”

But the medical world was not good for Goodwin. So he entered the world of websites and coding.

“It came naturally to me,” he says. “I started building websites for people and doing odds and ends. People would ask, ‘Do you know a guy who could do this?’ And I was that guy.”

In 2006, Goodwin quit his day job and started Goodwin Media full time. He was his one and only employee, doing design, development, and everything in between. Slowly but surely, referral after referral, employee after employee, Goodwin Media has grown every year since (and is a 6-time UV50 winner, mind you).

Mom’s The Word

One market Goodwin Media has honed and perfected is that of the millennial mom.

“Mom products, fashion products, social media … we have such a unique approach to selling these types of brands. Other agencies look at our model as risky. But our job is to influence the customer at every touch point and turn them into a brand champion,” Goodwin says. “Too often agencies pass the buck and blame low conversion rates on the parts of the marketing process they’re not in charge of. Too often an agency’s motivation works in contradiction to a customer’s motivation. But we are an end-to-end solution for our clients. We don’t make money unless they make money.”

Remote Connections

Goodwin Media’s 20 employees live all over: Utah, California, the East Coast, Portugal. This remote setup works because of their highly-skilled team.

“We’re a little different in that we don’t ascribe to the intern or junior model,” Goodwin says. “We hire specialists. We’re goal driven for our client, and we need employees who can accomplish those ambitious goals.”

The remote team also lends itself to a flexible work culture where employees can attend their kids’ school functions or go mountain biking in the iconic Utah mountains.

“We expect a lot, and I want our employees to feel liberated and empowered to do their best work and make the best choices for their families,” Goodwin says. “Our team is our best resource. We give our clients everything we’ve got. Even still, we’ve tried to stay under the radar. We’re the company you’ve never heard about.”

GOOD(WIN) AS GOLD: “We have one question we ask our team every week: ‘what can we do to drive growth this week for ____?’ then we go to work. We are a small team with a ton of experience and have learned how to identify the next thing that needs to be done to keep driving growth on a project. It’s been truly remarkable to see the results we’ve achieved with our clients and how it can be transformative. We’re always testing. we’re always diving into the data. and to-date it’s worked nine times out of 10. Not everything we touch turns to gold … but there’s been a lot of gold.”